Cause‐Related Marketing from the Nonprofit's Perspective: Classifying Goals and Experienced Outcomes

This research examines the cause‐related marketing (CRM) experience from a nonprofit (NPO) perspective, using qualitative and quantitative methods. U.S. NPO managers with direct CRM experience (n = 154) participated. Results demonstrate that NPOs have both first order (immediate financial support) and second order (less tangible, longer term) goals when undertaking CRM, and that they generally realize these outcomes, though not always. NPOs primarily seek event support, networking opportunities and public awareness, followed by funding opportunities, with less emphasis on gaining business expertise. This research extends the framework of Gourville and Rangan (2004 Gourville, J. T. and Rangan, V. K. 2004. Valuing the cause marketing relationship.. California Management Review, 47: 38–57. [Crossref], [Web of Science ®] , [Google Scholar]) by offering a more precise, differentiated model.     

Corporate Support for Employee Volunteerism Within Canada: A Cross-Cultural Perspective

Company support for employee volunteerism (CSEV) is one mechanism whereby businesses meet the escalating expectation for corporate social responsibility (CSR). Institutional theory is applied to examine patterns of convergence and divergence in CSR programs cross culturally, with a particular focus on intra-country cultural differences. Using a national (Canada) survey of businesses, we examine cross-cultural differences regarding CSEV in two regions of Canada—French Canada (Quebec) and English Canada. Our results suggest that cultural differences, rooted in historical conditions, may shape CSEV program implementation in Canada. Quebec companies are less likely to engage in CSEV. If they do encourage employee volunteerism, they may exclude certain cause types from support and appear to focus more on the external benefits of CSEV, such as community perception, than do firms in English Canada. Recognizing that no nation is culturally homogenous, our study illustrates that CSR and CSEV may vary significantly whenever or wherever cultural differences occur. Businesses and nonprofit organizations need to consider culture as an important variable when implementing corporate volunteer programs.     

Economic Integration and Convergence of Per Capita Income in West Africa

Economic co‐operation at the regional and sub‐regional level has been an important feature of the economic development policies of developing countries. The Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) was established in 1975 with a view, inter alia, to promote economic co‐operation and integration in West Africa. This paper tests for β and σ convergence for a group of low‐income countries in Africa where studies of this nature is sparse. Both cross sectional and time series approach is used to investigate convergence. The results show that ECOWAS countries form a convergence club, that is, the tendency for per capita income to convergence and a diminution of the standard deviation of per capita income over time. La coopération économique aux niveaux régional et sous‐régional constitue un élément important des politiques de développement économique adoptées par les pays en développement. La Communautééconomique des États d’Afrique de l’Ouest (CEDEAO) a été créée en 1975 pour, entre autres, promouvoir la coopération et l’intégration économique en Afrique de l’Ouest. Le présent article examine la convergence β et σ pour un certain nombre de pays africains á faible revenu oú les études de ce type sont peu nombreuses. Basant son examen de la convergence sur une approche á la fois transsectorielle et chronologique, l’article conclut que les pays de la CEDEAO forment un club de convergence, c’est á dire que le revenu par habitant manifeste une tendance á la convergence et enregistre une diminution de l’écart‐type au fil du temps.     

Figuratively speaking: analogies in the accounting classroom

One of the foundational subjects comprising most Master of Business Administration (MBA) programs is an introductory accounting course, in which students are exposed to the study of financial and management accounting at a basic level. For many students accounting is arguably the most feared subject in the MBA program. Although some students embrace the challenge and opportunity to develop an appreciation of accounting, the part it plays in organisations, and its role in management decision-making, for others the prospect of entering the world of accounting is one fraught with apprehension. Frequently described as ‘the language of business’, for students with limited experience or prior instruction in accounting, engaging with this language is formidable, and the demystification of the accounting lexicon represents a major challenge to accounting educators. This paper advocates the use of analogies, metaphors, and similes in helping MBA students understand accounting principles and engage with the conceptual underpinnings of the discipline.     

Optimal Sovereign Debt for an Overdebted Country

In this study, the role of debt maturity is analysed in a framework that blends a number of key macro‐economic factors with a process of estimating an optimal debt maturity maximising net present value. The purpose is to reduce the real value of government liabilities for a highly indebted country, as for example in the case of Greece, over a 35‐year period. The conclusion that emerges is that management of debt maturity is an essential component of the equilibrium policy and, as such, it can play an important role both in implementing tax smoothing programmes and in reducing costs associated with debt financing.     

Fragmented coherence: solid waste management in Colombo

Notwithstanding the increasingly fragmented organizational relationships within Colombo's urban governance system, the cooperative nature of stakeholder relationships lends a high level of coherence to the overall system. Since 1995, Colombo's solid waste management system has been characterized by the increased role of the private sector, community‐based organizations and NGOs. Whilst the increasingly fragmented nature of this system exhibits some deeply ingrained problems, there are also a number of positives associated with the increased role of civil society actors and, in particular, the informal sector. Reforming regulatory frameworks so as to integrate some of the social norms that are integral to the lives of the majority of urban residents will contribute to regulatory frameworks being considerably more enforceable than is currently the case. Such reform requires that institutional and regulatory frameworks need to be flexible enough to adapt to the changing social, political and economic context. In the Colombo case, effective cooperation between public sector and civil society stakeholders illustrates that adaptive institutional arrangements grounded in pragmatism are feasible. The challenge that arises is to translate these institutional arrangements into adaptive regulatory frameworks — something that would require a significant mind shift on the part of planners and urban managers. En dépit de relations structurelles de plus en plus fragmentées, la nature coopérative des liens entre les différents acteurs apporte une forte cohérence à l'ensemble du système de gouvernance urbaine de Colombo. Depuis 1995, la gestion des déchets y est caractérisée par le rôle croissant du secteur privé, de groupements locaux et d'ONG. Si la nature plus fragmentée de ce système révèle des problèmes profondément ancrés, un certain nombre d'aspects positifs s'associe au rôle plus présent des acteurs de la société civile, notamment du secteur informel. Réformer les cadres statutaires afin de pouvoir y intégrer certaines normes sociales dominantes dans la vie des citadins contribuera à ce que ces cadres soient beaucoup plus faciles à mettre en ?uvre qu'actuellement. Cette réforme implique que les cadres institutionnels et statutaires soient suffisamment souples pour s'adapter aux contextes social, politique et économique évolutifs. Dans le cas de Colombo, une coopération efficace entre les parties prenantes du secteur public et de la société civile montre que des dispositifs institutionnels adaptatifs fondés sur le pragmatisme sont viables. Le défi à relever tient à la possibilité de traduire ces dispositifs institutionnels en cadres statutaires adaptatifs, ce qui exigerait un net changement de mentalités chez les responsables et aménageurs urbains.     

Business as Usual? An Institutional View of the Relationship Between Management Control Systems and Strategy

The relationship between management control systems (MCS) and strategy has received considerable attention in the management control literature. Contingency‐based approaches, however, have traditionally dominated this research, with limited attention devoted specifically to how MCS and strategy may combine in organisations operating within highly institutionalised environments. Adopting an institutional perspective, the current study is based on interviews with CEOs and senior executives in 32 Australian Not‐for‐Profit organisations. Our findings indicate a tendency for these organisations to decouple informal control from MCS, producing a ‘business as usual’ mentality via the pervasive informal approach to control, supplanting contingency‐based predictions relating to MCS‐strategy relations.     

Revising the conventional tax-effort principle

The standard methodology on tax-effort (i.e., the ratio of actual tax revenue to its optimal level) is to run a regression of actual tax revenue on countries’ specific (macroeconomic, demographic, geographical, political, social, and institutional) variables. The resulting predicted (fitted) values are then taken to represent the optimal (desired or maximum) level of tax revenue. The crucial issue of tracing out how the optimal tax revenue should be allocated to the fiscal objectives (equity, efficiency) does not seem to be of any interest to the researchers on tax-effort. The present paper argues that the standard methodology is not without faults and needs revising. We demonstrate that an optimal tax system can be safely derived from maximizing a utility function with respect to (in)direct tax rates. The manipulation of the first-order conditions, using a novel mathematical module, leads to an infinite number of optimal direct–indirect tax rates. The selection of the optimal mix of these tax rates is dependent on the country-specific households’ preferences over equity/efficiency, as they are formulated by voters’ volition in election periods. A simulation procedure helps understanding how the optimal tax revenue is chosen and how it can be optimally allocated to fiscal objectives, in the context of a panel data set including a large number of developed and developing countries. Throughout our text, the optimal tax revenue is defined as the sum of the products of the optimal (in)direct tax rates and their corresponding tax bases. In the simple Arrow–Debreu economy, the above sum is shown to be equal to the difference between income and consumption.